If Edward intended to symbolise his naval power and sea sovereignty by the device on the gold noble in the early part of his reign, it was certainly inappropriate towards the end of it. The navy had been starved for the sake of the army, and when the Spaniards defeated the English fleet and were masters of the sea, complaints became rife as to the insecurity of the country. The king had then to listen to language from his Parliament to which he was unaccustomed, and which must have galled him. There are many instances in our history where the Commons have shown their spirit and temper when they thought the navy was inadequate for its duties, and on the occasion in question, in 1372, after granting a naval subsidy, they called the king’s attention to the fact that while twenty years previously, and always before, the navy was so noble and so numerous in all the ports, coast towns, and rivers that the whole country deemed and called him King of the Sea,[52] and he and all his country were the more dreaded by sea and by land by reason of the said navy, it was then so decreased and weakened from various causes that there was scarcely sufficient to defend the country, if need were, against royal power, by which there was great peril to all the realm.[53] From this complaint of the Parliament it would appear that the title of king or Lord of the Sea was applied in a popular sense, to signify the great sea-warrior who had overcome his enemies and made himself master of the sea. There was another symbol or supposed symbol of the sovereignty of the sea, which later became exceedingly prominent--viz., the striking of the flag or the lowering of the top-sails to a king’s ship, about which there is little to be found in the records of those times. It is nevertheless with this that the earliest of the records relating to the subject is concerned, and it is a very interesting one. The famous ordinance of King John which compelled the lowering of the sails has given rise to much controversy. It was first brought prominently to notice by Selden in 1635,[54] but it is also contained in the little work of Boroughs on the _Sovereignty of the British Seas_, which was written in 1633, although not published till 1651, and that author transcribed it from a manuscript in the possession of Sir Henry Marten, the Judge of the Court of Admiralty. Selden gave as his authority for it, “MS. Commentarius de Rebus Admiralitatis,” without further specification, and its authenticity was questioned by contemporary critics. Prynne, who, like Boroughs, was Keeper of the Records, printed it in 1669 from the _Black Book of the Admiralty_,[55] and from the fact that the _Black Book_ was lost until quite lately, and the existence of Selden’s manuscript in the Bodleian Library was overlooked, and that used by Boroughs unknown, some recent authors have regarded the ordinance with suspicion.[56] The most elaborate account